"wildshores" via ria in Google Reader

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Npark arranged a stayover at Ubin for the Ubin, CNR & SBWR volunteers on 19 & 20th May 2007. It was a nice gesture from NParks Ubin staff for recognising the time and efforts these volunteers has contributed. Many thanks to them.

We have so much food at the BBQ that there are so many leftovers. Hmm... I wonder what happened to the leftovers. :P

After everyone of us have filled our tummy, 3 of our volunteers shared some of their photos. Ron & Lay Hoon (did I get her name correct?) showed their pictures taken ard the shore of Singapore. Ron's pix are from the intertidal zone (including Chek Jawa) while Lay Hoon's are her diving trip at Raffles Lighthouse. Very nice and interesting pictures. You will never believe that the Singapore's waters still have so much bio-diversity.

Most of us tried to catch some sleep early cause we are suppose to move out to Chek Jawa in the early morning of 5am to catch the low tide as much as possible. The visit to Chek Jawa is the highlight this event. Everyone is so eager of it that all are already ready to set off by 5am.

By the time we reached Chek Jawa, it was still dark. Luckily, most of us came prepared with a torch. Straight away, all of us broke into small groups to explore this lovely place.

The very 1st animal I spotted is a Goby followed by lots of Tube Anemone (also known as peacock anemone).

There is this white tube anemone that is of particular interest to me. Can you spot how many different type of animals are there on this pix?

If you observe closely (oh! the pix too small? :p), beside the white anemone, you can see a number of Phoronid worm and an elbow crab. hee

Moving on. We came across lots of carpet anemone including the one below. Saw a number of variants. There are green, purple, yellow, brown, etc. Its really so beautiful to see them there.

Soon, we realised that there are some lights coming out from the sky. Our Mr. Sunshine is waking up!

With the natural sunlight help, we were able to explore the place much easier. From then onwards, many animals are see. Saw a number of sea stars and serpent stars. In my previous trip, I hardly see any of them. Thus was pretty delighted to spot quite a number of them. This probably shows that the animals at CJ are coming back from the freshwater flood couple of months back. Athough the stars are pretty small but hey, its a good sign that life are coming back!

As I mentioned earlier, there will lots of anemone. We did know how many there were until we ventured further outwards. We practically lost count.

Another animals that are of abundant is "crab". Spotted quite a few variant of it.

Of course, if there are crabs. How can there be no shrimps.

This is a redish body tiny shrimp that I'm not able to indentify. Anyone knows?

The infamous Mantis shrimp! Do you know that there was one occurence sometime back where a mantis shrimp actually snip off an adult thumb! Isn't it contradicting that they are a delicacy in many ASEAN countries. lol

Below are 2 pix that need goodd observation. Toad Fish, known to camouflage and hide themselves damn well ard rocks and mud.

While we continued exploring, soon we arrive at the 2nd boardwalk that links to the new chek Jawa visitor centre (to be completed soon).

This is actually my 1st time in this area. Very interesting. Managed to see a few other interesting animals.

Among them are Sea Pens, hermit crabs, mussels, seahorse, cockles, and even puffer fish!

A trip to CJ will nvr be completed without see any corals. Spotted a few of them including some sponge.